The Soke Dialect Survey was planned by Roberto Zavala, and Terrence Kaufman as part of the Project for the Documentation of the Languages of MesoAmerica in 2010. The questionnaire for this dialect survey was based on the Linguistic questionnaire for dialect variation research on the languages of Guatemala (Kaufman 1970-1971) and the Linguistic questionnaire for dialect variation research on the Totonac language (Kaufman, McKay and Trechsel, 1994).

The Soke (also spelled Zoque) languages is a subgroup of the Mije-Sokean (Mixe-Zoquean) family of languages spoken in southern Mexico. The Soke Dialect Survey concerns itself only with the Chiapas Zoque, Jitotoltec, and Oaxaca Zoque languages and does not contain material related to the Gulf Zoquean languages of Soteapan, Ayapa, or Texistepec. The language varieties represented in this collection have been assigned the following ISO 639-3 codes by Ethnologue:

zoh Zoque, Chimalapa

zoc Zoque, Copainalá

zos Zoque, Francisco León

zor Zoque, Rayón

Surveys were taken in the following municipalities
In Tabasco:

Tapijulapa, Tacotalpa

Oxolotán, Tacotalpa

Ejido Tomás Garrido, Oxolotán, Tacotalpa

In Oaxaca:

Santa Maria Chimapala

San Miguel Chimalapa

Las Conchas, San Miguel Chimalapa

In Chiapas:

Coapilla

Simojovel

Copoya, Tuxtla Gutiérrez

Pantepec

Ejido Calido, Jitotol

Arenal, Amatán

Barrio Siglo XX, Ixhuatán

Sombra Carrizal, Huitiupán

Nuevo Nicapa

Tapilula, San Cristobal de las Casas

Vicente Guerrero, Francisco Leon

Chapultenango

Ocotepec

Tapalapa

Tecpatán

Rayón

Nuevo Milenio, Ostuacán

Ambar, Ostuacán

These materials were given to AILLA by Terrence Kaufman for digitization and preservation in 2012. Most of these materials were on compact disks, and the original number of each disk can be found in the source note field on this collection's resources. After processing, physical media was returned to Kaufman beginning in May 2018.

The collection consists of 30 folders containing 331 audio recordings in WAV or MP3 format, 1 document containing a blank survey questionnaire and 784 images of the towns and people represented in the survey.

29 folders contain all the media (audio, and images) associated with a single set of responses to the dialect survey or metalinguistic interview, though a few long questionnaires are split across two folders. One folder contains a blank copy of the questionnaire used for this project. Many folders contain photographs of the community studied in each questionnaire, however, the subjects of these photographs are not identified, and most of the images are blurry. As of July 2018, there are no transcriptions of any survey responses in the collection.

Interactive Google maps showing locations of languages present in this and other Terrence Kaufman collections in AILLA are available

The digitization and preservation of this collection was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1157867. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.